Chapter 81
It wasn’t a pleasant experience, but it wasn’t the first time either. It had been like this when I witnessed what happened between Camilli and Wyner.
After some time passed, light began to seep in from somewhere, and the once complete darkness slowly started to dissolve.
Like dreaming, a hazy vision appeared before me—a large mansion with strangely familiar features.
“This place is…”
[You have obtained the interior map of Count Midas’s mansion!]
I gasped at the message floating before my eyes.
Midas. A name I could never forget. After all, I had died nearly a hundred times in his mansion during the game!
“So this is the next chapter.”
I wasn’t sure whether to feel happy that I’d reached a familiar chapter or to feel gloomy.
I sighed and looked around as the darkness cleared and my surroundings returned to normal. Although the vision showed only the exterior of Count Midas’s mansion, since I was given the map, I would easily be able to understand the interior layout once I entered.
And as Mockingbird said, that information was indeed essential for clearing the chapter.
I glared at the sender’s name written on the letter and muttered again,
“What kind of guy is this, anyway?”
Friend or foe? How much had he contributed to me coming to Harent?
Clenching the letter tightly, I closed my eyes gently. With only three chapters of residency left, the place I had to go next was quite clear.
.
.
.
Chapter 5 End: For the Sake of Our Bond
Dahlia Mute is a pretty fool.
This phrase had spread through high society ever since her tutors changed three times. One of them disparaged the youngest Mute as having an intelligence so low that learning was impossible, sparking the infamous nickname “pretty fool” among her peers.
Yet, Dahlia herself didn’t care much. Being slow to learn, including language, since birth, she was content with her current level. At least she could communicate as needed, and recently she had overcome illiteracy enough to read shop signs and catalogs on her own.
With no major discomfort, she had no complaints. No matter what others said, she was truly satisfied.
Moreover, unlike outsiders who gossiped eagerly, her family paid her little mind. Her father was rarely seen, and her mother often neglected young Dahlia while attending social events. Even Dante, who had once cared for her, ceased interaction after entering the academy dormitory.
Only one person challenged Dahlia’s slow learning.
“You spelled it wrong, idiot.”
Pointing to a notebook where “egg” was written as “geg”, her stepsister Camilli Mute sneered. Her hair, kissed by sunlight from the window, was as red as her sharp, meticulous personality.
Camilli’s strictness often burdened the servants who attended her, though it wasn’t much trouble for Dahlia.
Shrugging, Dahlia replied indifferently,
“So? As long as I know what it means.”
“If you’re the only one who understands the recipe, who’s going to bake the cookies?”
“I’ll bake them.”
“Did you forget you’re banned from the kitchen? You’re such a blockhead.”
They were riding the wave of a dessert-making trend among young ladies. Unfortunately, after nearly burning down the kitchen by turning up the heat too high, Dahlia was banned from entering.
But Dahlia planned to ignore that ban. Being scolded by her mother was so routine that it no longer scared her much.
“If you keep calling me a blockhead, I’m telling Mother!”
Fool, idiot, blockhead—words she’d heard so often they no longer hurt. She was indeed slower than others, so the words weren’t especially insulting.
Yet, Dahlia reacted more sharply to Camilli’s jabs because…
“Listen! How could someone who doesn’t even know how to spell ‘egg’ not forget it?”
She was the only person in the house who recognized that Dahlia wrote “geg”.
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